Donald Trump has challenged reporters to name a journalist who had been killed in Russia at the hands of the government.
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Donald Trump on Sunday defended Russian president Vladimir Putin’s record on press freedom, challenging journalists to provide him with evidence that the Kremlin has ever sponsored efforts to murder reporters. The Republican frontrunner also vowed again to work closely with Russia, if elected president.

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But Trump, whose lead in the polls has grown after a series of inflammatory Islamophobic slurs, called the Russian president’s remarks a “great honour” and described Putin as “a man highly respected within his own country and beyond”.

Trump was called out on the platitudes during an interview with MSNBC on Friday. Asked to condemn the Kremlin’s alleged involvement in the assassination of reporters, he responded: “Our country does plenty of killing also.”

Trump challenged reporters to name a journalist who had been killed in Russia at the hands of the government. Host George Stephanopoulos cited the 2006 murder of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, which some activists have long linked to the Russian government.

“If he has killed reporters I think that’s terrible,” Trump replied. “But this isn’t like somebody that’s stood with a gun and he’s taken the blame or he’s admitted that he’s killed. He’s always denied it.

“It’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody, so you know you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty at least in our country he has not been proven that he’s killed reporters.”

In a retrial in 2014, five men were convicted of Politkovskaya’s murder. But the mastermind of the plot has never been found. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 36 journalists have been murdered since 1993, often in direct retaliation for their work. In only four cases was anyone convicted.

The Putin administration is routinely accused of harsh crackdowns against political opponents and journalists in the region. Shortly after Putin was inaugurated for a third term in 2012, the federal assembly passed a series of bills restricting freedom of speech, which included greater censorship of online publishing, bolstering criminal defamation laws and curtailing the right to assemble.

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On Sunday, Trump defended his endorsement by and of Putin, arguing he would “get along [with him] very well for the good of our country”.

“Obama doesn’t get along with Putin,” Trump said. “Putin can’t stand our president and it’s causing us difficulty and frankly, I said it a long time ago, if Russia wants to bomb the hell out of Isis and join us in that effort, then I’m absolutely fine with it. I think that’s an asset not a liability.”

The warm remarks stand in contrast to Trump’s views on other world leaders and traditional allies of the US. Last week he said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was “ruining Germany” with her stance on the refugee crisis in Europe, after she was named Time magazine’s person of the year.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, told parliament this week he believed Trump’s controversial plans to ban all Muslims from entering the US, following the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, California, were “divisive, stupid and wrong”.

“If he came to visit our country, I think he would unite us all against him,” Cameron said on Wednesday.